Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Economic Terrorism Open Thread: Eat the Rich… ‘s Taxes

Economic Terrorism Open Thread: Eat the Rich… ‘s Taxes

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Didn’t find a space to post this during Davos, but now Bregman’s work looks to be going viral, as the Youngs say…

Hard to think of a more fitting poster child for ‘Expropriate Unearned Wealth’ than Tucker Carlson, yes?

More on this topic, from the Guardian:

No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there (May 2017)

Fightback against the billionaires: the radicals taking on the global elite (Feb 2019)

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  4. 4.

    Elizabelle

    The worm is turning.

    Wondered where that phrase came from, and it is spot on for this situation: Wiki:

    “Even a worm will turn” is an expression used to convey the message that even the meekest or most docile of creatures will retaliate or seek revenge if pushed too far. The phrase was first recorded in a 1546 collection of proverbs by John Heywood, in the form “Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne.”

    ETA: Shakespeare too! From Henry VI, part 3: ” … The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.”

  10. 10.

    MomSense

    @dmsilev:

    Those greedy motherfuckers probably deleted it.

    Picture a photo of a very expensive yacht – fit for a billionaire. The caption for the photo is

    Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. – Henry David Thoreau #inspiration

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    Wealth is created FOR the top, not “by” nor “at” the top.

    Same as it ever was,
    Same as it ever was.

    PS: And, like clockwork, this site crashed the browser window

  16. 16.

    Uncle Omar

    Off topic: De Facto President Coulter has informed her underling to veto the budget compromise or she will no longer allow him to occupy his current residence.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @SFAW:

    I’ll be honest. I read the Guardian pieces, and I didn’t like the whole “where wealth is created” argument. It’s fine as a call-to-arms polemic, but it’s not really precise as an economic matter, although it reads like an economic argument.

  18. 18.

    jeffreyw

    @Martin:

    A subscription to Billionaire Magazine should cost $1B, as proof that you deserve to read the magazine.

    We don’t expect to sell many copies at that price, but we only need to sell one.

  21. 21.

    laura

    Bring on the confiscatory tax rates and estate taxes to wring the idle capital out of their soft hands and start using it for the public good.

  23. 23.

    Yarrow

    @MomSense:

    they are approaching guillotine levels of outrage.

    It’s pretty easy to understand how the French Revolution happened. The billionaires think their money is going to save them. It isn’t.

  25. 25.

    debbie

    @Uncle Omar:

    Now she’s worked up because “thousands of likes” have disappeared from this tweet:

    Trump talks a good game on the border wall but it's increasingly clear he's afraid to fight for it. Call this his "Yellow New Deal."— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 12, 2019

    Could SHS be that devious?

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    @jeffreyw:
    Each copy contains a gatefold image of mansion/yacht/jet/island so that readers may tell their acquaintances “I subscribe for the articles.”

  27. 27.

    different-church-lady

    I say this every time the subject comes up: I don’t care if billionaires are billionaires. What I care about is whether billionaires fuck things up for everyone else so badly that I can’t even make my modest little life work anymore.

  28. 28.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The thesis of the article seems a bit over the top; Google is a parasite because they figured out how get revenue for their service threw advertisement; you mean like a newspaper or TV station? I would think practices like Google firing their staff after six months or buying the city of Menlo Park is far more toxic to the economy than advertisement.

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    Didn’t find a space to post this during Davos, but now Bregman’s work looks to be going viral, as the Youngs say…

    There was a fun post about the Tucker Carlson blow-up at Gizmodo this morning. Historian Who Shamed Davos Elites Says Tucker Carlson Called Him a ‘Fucking Moron’ In Meltdown

    Be still, my heart: Dutch historian Rutger Bregman has been on a bit of a wild ride since his appeal for the billionaires at Davos to pay their fair share in taxes went viral. Now he’s accusing Fox News’ Tucker Carlson of melting down at him during an interview.

  35. 35.

    aliasofwestgate

    This is good to hear, but at the moment i’m feeling a bit raw from dealing with MI’s ‘long term care’ bullshit even if someone is only in a nursing facility for another 3 months for ‘restorative’ physical therapy. They are literally entitled to all of my mother’s income AND the medicaid payments because that’s the law. Fuck any intention of her retaining her home. I’d go for financial aid on my own, but i can’t do that with my asshole brother living in the house and in general looking over my fucking shoulder about everything even if i don’t WANT him to. This is where a universal basic income would be handy, but that’s far too long out of reach. So i get to go freelance job hunting with chronic pain. Fun, yeah? Eat the rich sounds really good at the moment, but i’d settle for taxing the bastards to get some of their money back to pay Mom’s bills instead of the state’s radical laws allowing confiscation of any and all income to the patient if in a facillty–even temporary.

  47. 47.

    Mike in NC

    Apparently the Fat Bastard briefly published a magazine with his name on the cover, but like most of his ridiculous scams, nobody who wasn’t a gullible moron wanted anything to do with it. Oprah could do it because she’s a lot richer and smarter.

  49. 49.

    Leto

    @Yarrow: That’s one of the things I’ve never understood about the elite and their doomsday scenarios where they supposedly have guards to protect them. Why would they? What are they going to pay them with? Everything they need to live will be right there, and they have the guns. Why do they need extra whiny mouths to feed? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  50. 50.

    different-church-lady

    @debbie: I’m not even talking about individuals. I’m talking about fucking over the entire economy. It almost happened in 2008, where the entire thing almost toppled over. But it can happen in other ways, like if their appetite for pushing wealth upward gets so out of control that there really is NOTHING left for us proles.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @MomSense:

    Did you know there is a billionaires magazine?

    There used to be “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”, so I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a magazine about billionaires. It’s for people who want to dream about how wonderful it would be to be filthy rich.

  56. 56.

    different-church-lady

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s for people who want to dream about how wonderful it would be to be filthy rich.

    Is there a magazine for middle aged people who want to dream about how wonderful it would be to have retirement savings above four figures?

  58. 58.

    Duane

    @debbie: The subscriber’s list to Billionaire would be useful for tumbrel assignment.
    Eating the rich will require some effort. Fuckers not gonna herd themselves.

  60. 60.

    B.B.A.

    @Sebastian: That loophole was closed last year in South Dakota v. Wayfair. This also benefits Amazon, because smaller e-commerce sites don’t have the resources to keep up with our eleventy billion micro-jurisdictions and their separate sales tax rates.

  61. 61.

    aliasofwestgate

    @Baud: I’ll be okay. I’m just pissed off about the law in general. Which means i get to put up with this asshole of my brother for 3 months even after i find some way to bring in enough income to contribute to bills. I did not want him ‘swooping’ into the place as teh rescue but that’s exactly what he did. I’ve been my mom’s caretaker for years, and this shit annoys the crap out of me. I’m the elder sister by 6 years and he’s acting like he’s the one who’s been helping mom manage her finances the entire time. He pretty much expects to control everything i do, up to and including finding a job i can do. I’d rather not wake up in agony every morning from my permanent abdominal pain from endometriosis because i’m stuck as a retail monkey doing physical labor that puts me into a permanent state of flare up. Getting him to understand that shit is hitting my head against a brick wall. *sighs*

    ETA: Mom is of sound mind, she needs the rehab to get her basic mobility back. She’s been disabled for well over a decade now, and i’m here to deal with whatever else she can’t do. Definitely not end of life or anything.

  62. 62.

    Kraux Pas

    @Baud:

    I heard busting unions was pretty easy in Tennessee.

    Can we start re-branding “Right to Work” laws as “Right to Mooch,” As in right to benefit from representation while not paying for it and slowly starving the union of resources?

  63. 63.

    Yarrow

    @Leto: I know! It’s like they think their money makes it so they’ll be the ones in charge forever. That’s not how it’s going to work in those scenarios.

    And there’s real basic stuff, like who’s gong to take care of the trash? And where are the doctors for when they get sick? Who do they call when the internet goes out? It’s like they think they can just live on a compound and need nothing else. It’s bizarre.

  64. 64.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Sebastian: Even that’s kind of debatable – Amazon doesn’t have to pay for stores, just warehouses so even with a internet sales tax they will be cheaper that any book store chain. Not to mention Borders and Barnes and Noble who were Amazon’s competition went full retard and opened so many stories they ended up competing with themselves.

  65. 65.

    Stuart Frasier

    I work for an ultra-wealthy person who has been radicalized by Donald Trump. Even then, I was kind of amazed last night at dinner when he was advocating for punitive taxes on the rich.

  67. 67.

    geg6

    Question for the BJ hive mind:

    My sister is a professor at a local university that has a large number of Saudi students funded by one of the many princes. One of those students came to her office for a meeting about a paper he was writing and came out to her as gay. He is well aware of the danger he would be in if he went home. She is concerned that if he tried to get asylum here in the US, the cozy Trump relationship with MBS would put him in danger, too. She says he’s already meeting with a mental health counselor affiliated with the university, so his mental/emotional health issues are being dealt with. But any ideas about what he should do? I think Canada, myself, but what do I know?

  74. 74.

    Sab

    @aliasofwestgate: I am also the local caretaker sibling with other helicopter siblings. I can’t offer you anything except best wishes, but some of the other jackals have really good advice.

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    @B.B.A.:

    This also benefits Amazon, because smaller e-commerce sites don’t have the resources to keep up with our eleventy billion micro-jurisdictions and their separate sales tax rates.

    Which is one reason Amazon is set up as a platform for third-party sellers as well as selling stuff themselves. Though honestly, there’s probably a business opportunity in creating some kind of platform that would make it practical for tiny e-commerce sites to deal with sales taxes throughout the country.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:
    It’s true that Amazon has some structural advantages, but brick and mortar stores have their own advantages. People still like shopping in person because they can see and touch the things they’re buying in person and they get what they want immediately. And Amazon does have to pay for shipping, or to add shipping costs. I think dodging sales taxes, especially in high tax locations like California, was a major draw.

  80. 80.

    Leto

    @Yarrow: Yeah, it’s just crazy. There’s all the little things that need to be taken care of (you didn’t pay me to change light bulbs, nor to scrub that toilet), as well as medical/dental/technology/etc… how much does a banana cost, $10?

    @geg6: Is there any chance the student could get a permanent job here in the states? Is he obligated to return? How close is he to getting his degree? I ask that because he might be able to wait out the Trumpov admin. If not, Canada is always there. At the very least I hope he gets the help he needs while he’s able.

  81. 81.

    aliasofwestgate

    @Sab: They do! I got the advice and i’ve a friend who’s doing the same for her Dad. She’s an only child so she has some leeway in things, plus being in another state. Right now i’m just trying to cool off after the nastier bits of the law just slapped me in the face today after doing so last week as well. Putting up with the neanderthal who thinks i’ll do anything he tells me to will take longer. Especially since i know my limits and he doesn’t.

  83. 83.

    Amir Khalid

    @Duane:
    I doubt that there’d be many actual billionaires on Billionaire‘s subscriber roll. Actual billionaires don’t have time to read about billionairing in a magazine. They spend all day doing it.

  88. 88.

    Gelfling 545

    @Elizabelle: Both coincidentally and off topic, I have been reading a book called The Earth Moved which is all about earthworm, their importance and the fact that they, as well the better recognized insects vital to our planet’s health are being decimated by overdevelopment.

  89. 89.

    Sab

    @aliasofwestgate: It’s important to know your limits. I almost died a few years ago because I was too busy taking care of my Dad to look after my own health issue.

    Dead caretakers aren’t much use to anyone.

  90. 90.

    Jay

    @geg6:

    LBGTQ is a protected refugee status in Canada.

    The student needs to:
    – make sure their passport is good to the end of their scholarship,
    – never go home or to a Sawdi Embassy or Consulate,
    – never go on vacation to a Sawdi Enabling state like Thailand, or even fly through them,
    – wait until their paid scholarship is done, and if things arn’t different in the US by them, come north. They should arrange between now and then, to have an Immigration lawyer, ( paid or probono) meet them at the border and be familiar with their case.

  91. 91.

    Jay

    @MomSense:

    You don’t need to. Just cross at any legal border crossing, state the reason for your business, and come on in,

    Or go to California.

  100. 100.

    Jay

    @geg6:

    There’s a bunch of Sawdi refugee’s here, along with LBGTQ groups that are refugee centric.

    The student should use a clean computer/cellphone, keep it locked, use anonomizing software and encryption, and make contact with such groups in the nearest Canadian big city, about a year before their scholarship is over.

    They need to assume that they have already been “outed” or will be soon, in every interaction with a family member/friend/Sawdi official.

    When they come to Canada, they need to come “out”. Because a lot of LGTBQ immigrants and refugee’s stay in the closet to maintain relationships with family/friends/community, there are people who will prey on them.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    One educator’s facebook comment on @DonaldJTrumpJr’s remarks on ‘loser teachers.’ “This is understandable. He probably blames teachers for his immense stupidity. We are not miracle workers, Junior.”

    After graduating from Penn in 2000, Trump moved to Aspen, Colorado, where he hunted, fished, skied, lived in a truck, and worked as a bartender for a year, before returning to join the Trump Organization in New York. Trump has supervised building projects, which included 40 Wall Street, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Trump Park Avenue, In 2006 he helped launch Trump Mortgage; the company collapsed in less than a year.In 2010 he became a spokesperson for Cambridge Who’s Who, a public relations firm that had received hundreds of complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau. He appeared as a guest adviser and judge on many episodes of his father’s reality television show The Apprentice, from season 5 in 2006 to his father’s last season in 2015.

    “Cambridge Who’s Who” is hysterical. You don’t even need to know more than the name.

  106. 106.

    different-church-lady

    @NotMax:

    “Beethoven”

    “Mozart”

    “Chopin”

    “Liszt”

    “Brahms”

    “Panties …I’m sorry!”

    – Monty Python

  109. 109.

    dimmsdale

    @geg6: I am about 99% sure there is either a group or several groups of lawyers willing to handle immigration cases for free. (The big airport demonstration a year or 2 ago welcoming immigrants had, I think, more attorneys showing up offering free immigration help than there were immigrants.)

    Also, there’s this, which I haven’t searched out too much–if you scroll to the end of the pane, there are logos of a number of advocacy groups that might be able to help.

    immigrationadvocates.org/projects/

  110. 110.

    dimmsdale

    @aliasofwestgate: I am really sorry for your circumstances, any ONE of which would be trying enough, but together—blech! I got a lot of moral support and good strategies from a caregivers’ group I was in when my mom was entering frail elderly status. The group was FOR the people taking care, and was attached to a geriatric social work unit at one of the hospitals here. I don’t know if that’s practical for you or not, but if so, I can tell you I got a good deal of relief (sorely needed) from being involved in the group. Good luck!

  112. 112.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @laura: I don’t understand how we collectively have forgotten the tax rates under Ike. Those rates and the GI Bill created the ‘golden age’ of the post WWII period that is the America the MAGAts want to go back to.

    Yes, I do realize that era was bad for non-whites and to a lesser extent for white women.

  113. 113.

    Sab

    @Kay: I cannot imagine her doing that, so the rest of your “imagine…” makes no sense. I expect you understand my problem.

  117. 117.

    Ksmiami

    @Yarrow: ironically as society breaks down, their private security forces will turn on their billionaire clients first… can’t say I’m sympathetic

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @different-church-lady:
    I care if they are billionaires because most who got to be a billionaire did so on the backs of a lot of other people and they didn’t do it kindly. And the reality is that half a billion makes a pretty good nest egg if you don’t just throw it away. But a billion or more is far more than anyone needs and usually leads to just throwing it away on gold toilets because otherwise, who would know that you are a rich cocksucker.
    Name 10 billionaires who aren’t scum sucking assholes.

  125. 125.

    PJ

    @debbie: “Predatory” is kind of the definition for success in America. Mitt Romney didn’t pull himself up by the $100,000 bootstraps his dad lent him by actually building up sustainable businesses.

  127. 127.

    billcinsd

    @Ladyraxterinok: Royal Pains? It featured a doctor who got canned for being more concerned with saving lives than making money, who ends up as a concierge doctor in the Hamptons. Ran on USA from 2009-2016

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